Full Disclosure: I’ve been natural for nearly 12 years. Many years ago, when I was working on a big real estate project as an entry level project manager, a fellow black woman admonished me for wearing a colorful headscarf. At the time, I wore my hair in double strand twists that I would do myself, a tedious,painstaking project that would warrant me wearing a headscarf for a day or two because until I completed it. She told me that she ‘didin’t want people to get the wrong idea about the project.’ Her hair, by contrast, was chemically straightened, permed in the natural parlance of black hair styles. She occassionaly wore hair pieces as well.

Context here is king: we were black women in a predominantly white male environment represented a contrasting view of black female identity. And hair, is a trait of that identity. I naively assumed that at the dawn of the 21st century, my hair was not relevant fact in convincing loan officers to invest in a real estate transaction.

After 12 years of being natural, I’m kinda stoked about all this mainstream excitement (thank you CurlyNikki.com and Naturallycurly.com). But haters still lurk in the ether. 16 year old Gabby Douglas is a member of the 2012 US Olympic Gold Medal Gymnastics Team. Why are people tweeting about her hair?

2) Many of us, Black women, have acquired the horrible habit of criticizing each other from head to toe with no regards of its repercussions. It’s almost like a sport to see how many laughs or likes one’s criticisms can get on Facebook or retweets on Twitter. Once again criticism has trumped compliments. And as a Black woman, this saddens me.

3) Putting more focus on Gabby’s hair and not her athleticism proves many of us are still missing the point on where true beauty, strength, and health lies. Some of us are sitting up right now with our hair done but suffering from high blood pressure, borderline diabetes, obesity, and/or a lack of energy. Oh, but the hair is on point. As mentioned earlier, I don’t know Gabby Douglas personally and I would never try to speak on her behalf. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that she considers her health and fitness level to be a little more important than her hair staying in place.

What’s particular to me in this narrative about blackness and beauty is the rather uncomfortable admission that we are overly concerned by how the world (white people) sees us and our own internalized narrative of the meaning of kinky, curly, (nappy) hair. Our hair comes in all textures and types. The resources and community support that are available to us today were absent in my earliest journey of ‘transitioning‘. Yet, we’re still policing each other on how to be and be seen. Solange Knowles has also had her share in engaging the hair policing this summer, took to twitter to hush her critics for calling her hair ‘unkempt’ and ‘dry as heck’. Key word: ‘unkempt’. The socialization around black women and our naturally curly hair centers around a perception that I have assume stems from our tortured racial history, that our hair, wild, tightly curled, textured hair means something that is ‘bad’, ‘unruly’, ‘uncivlized’ and ‘rebellious’. The legacy of language in this context sadly echoes more race talk but within our own community. ‘Unkempt’ is this context is another way to say ‘uncivilized’. I’d wager that the history of racist and negative imagery of blacks in America in caricature, minstrel, to black face has a lot about how we worry about high profile successful blacks represent us to the mainstream. Except, now, we’re on the fast track becoming the mainstream. There’s a remarkable amount of work we have to do to transition our language from negative associations of black hair (beauty and identity) in the face of a flyaway strand from a dismount off a perfect balance beam routine.

I personally wear my hair however I want to wear it. Over the years, it has become less and less political for me. It’s freeing in a choice. It has also been a learned practice to avoid internalizing the judgement of some black women about the appropriate presentation of my hair as well as managing the curiosity of non black folk about the nature of my hair. I wear my hair in braids, twists, afros, blowouts, and pressed (by flatiron) for years. It’s my head and my hair. I whip it back and forth.

SYREETA MCFADDEN is a Brooklyn based writer, photographer and adjunct professor of English. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches and Storyscape Journal. She is the managing editor of the online literary magazine, Union Station, and a co-curator of Poets in Unexpected Places. You can follow her on Twitter @reetamac.

Syreeta McFadden is a contributing opinion writer for The Guardian US and an editor of Union Station Magazine.

In the wake of important conversations around sexual harassment and sexual violence being had following the #MeToo movement, leftist publishing house Verso is offering for free an e-book entitled Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo, a collection of powerful and intersectional takes on power, feminism, and politics.

The book is an important intervention in a conversation that, in the mainstream, even “liberal” media, has become distracted relitigating regressive questions of what constitutes consent and whether women ask for it and diluted in its impact by the transphobia of one of its key initial instigators. On this website, we’ve tried our best to steer the conversation in other directions instead: discussing the centrality of trans ...

In the wake of important conversations around sexual harassment and sexual violence being had following the #MeToo movement, leftist publishing house Verso is offering for free an e-book entitled Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo, a ...

Writers and feminist activists Attia Taylor and Ailyn Robles started Womanly Magazine in 2012 as a way to circulate women’s health information and resources through the lens of art.

Since its inception, the magazine has evolved to include 20 women working in various roles to build and expand this innovative online platform. They define their mission as “to bridge the gaps between generations, cultures, economic statuses, borders, and any barrier that society tells us should set us apart.”

The first issue is on sex ed and features an incredible array of video, visual art, memoir, and more, addressing topics from female sexuality in Cuba to vaginal health.

For ...

Writers and feminist activists Attia Taylor and Ailyn Robles started Womanly Magazine in 2012 as a way to circulate women’s health information and resources through the lens of art.

Search

We need your help!

Get Our Newsletter

New posts and Feministing news delivered to your inbox weekly!

Want to write for us?

All Feministing posts are written by the site’s collective of regular columnists and editors. Though we don’t currently accept guest submissions, we have an open platform Community site to which anyone can contribute. We often promote our favorite Community posts on the main site. And Community bloggers who consistently impress us may to be invited to become regular Feministing columnists..